BUSINESS PROFILE
Better billing pays off I
Shaun Bodsworth
Although a new name in comms, Inform Billing Solutions has a long track record, a fierce passion for independence and big expansion plans. We got the story from Managing Director Shaun Bodsworth.
nform Billing Solutions is privately owned, passionately independent and highly ambitious. The company, which has just completed its first year of trading, is now on a campaign to double its customer base by mid-2012. “Our aggressive growth plans focus on key marketing messages and, above all, our independence as a billing software developer,” said Bodsworth. “The ongoing acquisition wave shaping our industry has seen billing providers bought and amalgamated, losing their independence. We are fiercely proud about being truly independent. As such we look at every customer individually to develop tailored billing services and support to fit with their billing needs, the way they operate and synced into their existing operations platforms.”
Born from of a management buyout in January 2010, Inform Billing was previously part of the GCI COM group, and prior to that was an independent reseller/billing software developer known as Pan Telecom. In 2003 Pan Telecom was acquired by GCI COM and it became an intrinsic part of the group. Formerly Managing Director of the old Pan Telecom company, Darren Salisbury, a Director at Inform Billing Solutions, has been with the company since its inception and was instrumental in arranging the buyout. Bodsworth
had been a customer of the software firm since 2001 on two separate occasions, formerly as a Director of an independent service provider and latterly with Inform Telecom, Inform Billings’ sister company.
Evolutionary change “We have just passed our first year anniversary and have been through an evolution of our image and positioning, clarifying our approach to market,” said Bodsworth. “We believe that our strap line says it all, ‘When it has to be right!’, and billing does! We deliver bespoke billing solutions, something that is reflected in our new branding which we launched this month alongside a new website.”
The company’s experience allows it to add real value to both established resellers and new start-ups. “We are also seeing a great deal of interest within the ICT marketplace as true convergence of products and technologies means traditional ICT resellers are now making the leap into telecoms,” added Bodsworth. “One of our key strengths is our knowledge of the telecoms market. This enables us to assist resellers in many ways. Whether they are stepping into telecoms for the first time or redirecting their business, we can also help and support resellers in areas other than billing.”
Inform Billing provides two main products. Eclipse is a Billing and Customer Care application, allowing resellers to bill end customers for the products and services they sell. Enlighten allows customers to view bills created by Eclipse via a web portal. Enlighten is fully branded to the resellers’ own identity and can even be branded for sub-resellers making it suitable for aggregators.
Bodsworth commented: “Our independence means that resellers are able to choose which partners they wish to work with based on the true merits of their solutions, safe in the knowledge that we can support the billing requirements. They can change providers or add new services without concerns over billing capability as they know our support will be there for them.”
Paying recurring bills is no longer an unquestioned automated process, according to Bodsworth. He commented: “We work with a number of organisations to enable them to provide accurate, easy to understand reporting that highlights not only areas of cost reduction but also areas of streamlining to improve internal efficiencies. It is also essential to identify and correct errors in billing, so Inform Billing Solutions has focused on working with people to help them bill better.”
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32 COMMS DEALER MARCH 2011
www.comms-dealer.com
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